This year, as we've been working closely with UK small
scale fishermen, one thing has become abundantly clear: the EU Common Fisheries
Policy, or CFP, is not working. Full stop.

It's not working for fishermen in the communities along
our coasts; it's not working for fish or the marine environment and it's
certainly not working for consumers.

That's why, today, we launched a joint
manifesto with NUTFA (the New Under Ten Fishermen's Association, the guys
who support and represent small scale fishermen), and a number of Fishermen’s
Associations. This manifesto is our
shared vision -- it calls on the UK government to ensure a future for fish and fishing communities by supporting local, sustainable fishermen, via radical reform of the CFP. And it sets out
agreement between Greenpeace and fishermen, as to what exactly needs to
change. Yes, that’s right,
environmentalists and fishermen agreeing on fishy issues!

The alliances that have formed between Greenpeace and
fishermen this year may seem unusual to some – but gone are the days of
throwing stones at each other – at the end of the day, both Greenpeace and the
UK’s inshore fishermen want a future
with (sustainable) fish on the plate but plenty left in the sea. We work with low impact fishermen, who look
after their patch. And who, tragically,
may be the last of their kind, due to broken European and domestic fisheries
polices that are stacked in favour of powerful European fleets.

Europe's fishing grounds, which were once the largest in
the world, are dwindling. In fact, over 70% of our fish stocks are overfished.
And the situation isn't getting any better. Highly industrialised European fishing fleets
continue to overfish our seas, using unsustainable and often destructive
methods of fishing. Their fleets are so powerful that they can catch up to 3
times more fish than the ocean can handle.

If only there were rules and regulations to stop this
from happening! This is where the CFP comes in. The irony is that this policy
was put in place by the EU some 40 years ago precisely to avoid this kind of
situation. The situation we find ourselves in today, however, is a mess.

Both current and past policies favour the most
influential and powerful European fishing fleets, enabling them to overfish our
seas. These operations, many of which
are both environmentally and economically unsustainable, are often kept afloat
with taxpayers' money.

What this means in practice is that parts of the European
fleet catch more fish than is sustainable, while disenfranchising small scale,
sustainable fishers. In the UK, these small scale operators - also known as
"under 10s" or boats that are under 10 metres in length - make up more
than three quarters of the total UK fleet. The majority of them use selective
methods that produce high quality fish, allow fish stocks to replenish
themselves and have little impact on the marine environment.

But they have consistently suffered under an unfair system
– despite representing 77% of the UK fishing fleet, small-scale boats receive
only 4% of the fishing quota. Our local
fishermen in Cornwall, East Sussex, Devon and other coastal communities around
the UK are in real danger of losing their livelihoods. Local fishing
communities who have fished responsibly for generations are shrinking, and may
disappear forever. Meanwhile, they watch
as highly-industrialised vessels from countries such as Spain and France fish on
the 6 nautical mile mark, given “traditional” fishing rights under the CFP.

So, as the CFP is under review for the first time in a
decade, Greenpeace and fishermen jointly call for a new CFP that gives the
right to fish to those who fish in the right way, ends destructive fishing
practices, and puts the health of our oceans at the very heart of the CFP.

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By Florian - 8 August 2012 at 8:27pm

Don't know what's so great about hunting wild animals on land or under the sea so I won't be a fisherman's friend.

By thelemur - 12 August 2012 at 5:11pm

I watched the documentary about the 'last fishermen' at the Rio in Dalston last night. The documentary was very effective, and the people I was with were all convinced of the cause, and would have liked to participate.

The problem was that when the documentary started, it seemed like it was a short film being played before the main feature. Everyone therefore switched off their phones. By the time the documentary finished, i don't think many people wanted to switch their phones on because the feature was about to start. I think it would be a good idea to put a poster in the foyers of cinemas to remind people as they leave about the documentary.

By Matthew Duncan - 25 October 2012 at 1:28pm

About Alicia - Oceans Team

I'm a recent addition to the Oceans Team where I'm working on the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy - in particular the impact of European's external fleet on some of the poorest non-EU nations.